If you’re pre-diabetic, you’re probably working to eat healthier and exercise more. But there’s one more thing you should be doing that could help make a difference and turn your health around!
Sleep more. Yep, it’s that easy. If you’re not getting enough sleep, it may be contributing to your pre-diabetic state.
What’s going on? When you sleep, your body goes through several processes that refresh and support your overall health (especially your brain and heart). One of those involves something called free fatty acids.
Normally, free fatty acid levels will go up while you’re sleeping, then go back down. When you don’t get enough sleep, they don’t go back down, and that elevated level of free fatty acids in your bloodstream impairs your insulin production/efficacy, and if it goes on long enough, it can give even a healthy person symptoms of pre-diabetes.
Let me point this correlation out: another study has found that teens today don’t sleep enough. Physically, they need a lot, but socially, they’re in a highly competitive environment where every minute can be spent doing something to pad their college resume. Current teens are also experiencing higher levels of pre-diabetes and Type-2 diabetes.
Something else: there’s also a correlation between not sleeping enough (or well enough, if you’ve got a lot of light pollution from electronic devices in your room) and weight gain. And of course, weight gain is another factor in Type-2 Diabetes.
See where all this is going?
So how much sleep do you need? The standard recommendation is 7-9 hours. But recent research says that doesn’t mean to just pick an amount and go with it: where you fall in that range is genetic.
To get started, form good sleep habits. Your bed is for sleeping, not email (this helps train your brain to go to sleep when you lay down, rather than run).
To avoid waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle, find a phone app that will wake you up based on your movement (if you sleep alone) or gradually with increasing chimes.
Fighting insomnia? Try exercising in the morning, and quitting caffeine around lunch. For more help, try our all natural, sleep supporting supplements.
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